


Penance

by tethys_raftpermit



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Belts, Canes, Caning, Catharsis, Corporal Punishment, Detention, Discipline, First Time, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Punishment, Sectumsempra, Sectumsempra Scars, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 14:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16041911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tethys_raftpermit/pseuds/tethys_raftpermit
Summary: Harry hadn't known what that spell did. He was sorry. But sometimes sorry and a few detentions aren't enough to make things right.In which Harry serves penance for the Sectumsempra fiasco.





	Penance

Two weeks.

Harry had two weeks for the shock of the incident to fade, the blood washed out from under his fingernails, his robes long since laundered clean, the incriminating book hidden and his guilt and shame wrestled down into a quiet corner.

Two weeks for the monotony of detentions with Snape to set in, Malfoy out and about again, business as usual. For Harry's mind to begin to turn to unrelated matters.

Then the other shoe dropped.

He walked into detention and Snape was watching him. Unblinking, impassive. Harry kept moving, to the table, dropping into the seat and looking around for the current box of moth-eaten filing cards. Which wasn't there.

He glanced back at Snape's expressionless face, decided to wait it out in silence.

A minute passed. Harry's skin prickled under that black, fathomless stare. Just as he'd resolved to say something after all, Snape spoke.

"I wonder, Potter," said the low, cold voice, "whether you really thought that was all."

Harry's stomach twisted. He stared back at Snape.

"Whether you really thought," the sneering voice continued, "you could actually just get away with murder."

Harry's throat went dry. "He's not dead," he said automatically.

"No thanks to you."

They contemplated each other. Harry had no idea what to say. How he really felt about the whole awful business, he wasn't about to spill in front of Snape, of all people.

Still, the git had saved Malfoy, somehow, had been there in the nick of time, had kept the unthinkable from happening. The part of Harry's mind that often spoke in Hermione's voice wrenched at him, dragging out words.

"I . . . I'm glad you were there," he offered awkwardly, blood rising to his cheeks. "And . . . I didn't mean . . . I am sorry."

Snape's eyes trapped him. "You will be."

Harry blinked.

Snape turned away, standing in a swirl of black robes. Harry exhaled shakily. And then the professor walked over to a cabinet, opened it, and drew out what was unmistakably a long, straight cane, with only one possible purpose.

Harry's lips went numb, his hearing seemed to come through a layer of cotton.

"Potter, I don't think I have to tell you what this is."

No, he could see that for himself.

"Or why you deserve it."

Harry's eyes snapped from the instrument in Snape's hand to the professor's face. There was no hint of mocking laughter twisting the harsh mouth, no triumph in the eyes, just a strange detached fury, white and remote and inexorable.

"Stand up," Snape ordered.

He did.

"Remove your outer robes."

He gazed at Snape.

"Now," the professor hissed.

Willing his hands steady, Harry unclasped the heavy, black material, let it slip from his shoulders. He was still fully dressed, really. But the look in Snape's eyes made him feel more exposed than he'd ever felt in his life, even in moments of mortal peril.

"Come here," said Snape. "And bend over the desk."

Oh, hell. In this far . . .

Harry walked to the teacher's desk, fixed his gaze into the middle distance, tried to think of something else, and leaned forward tentatively, spine curving, forearms meeting the smooth, wooden expanse. He flattened his hands against its surface, and waited.

And waited.

Increasingly unnerved, he drew a breath, and at that moment, Snape struck.

The sound of the cane, its whistle and crack shockingly loud in the shadowy office, was almost worse than the feeling of its impact.

For a second.

And then the pain sliced through wool trousers, skin, muscle, nerve. Even if Harry hadn't been resolved not to make a sound, the pain stopped the breath in his chest, sealed his airways like frigid water closing over his head.

Then an agonizing brushfire of sensation followed the slicing cold, lancing through his nerves, and Harry drew blood biting down on the inside of his cheek in his effort to stay utterly silent. He exhaled through his nostrils, kept still and waited.

Snape's booted footfalls echoed across the stone behind him. He paced to one side, turned, paced back, stopped. Even facing forward, Harry felt the black eyes' searing gaze.

Snape drew back and brought the cane down again.

Harry knew what to expect this time, clamped down on instincts screaming at him to move, to fight, kept quiet and still and waited.

The wave of cold fire crashed through him a third time, crossing welts still radiating fresh acid pain. Chills broke over him. He stared into the distance.

The cane bit down with another punishing lash, starting to form a lattice of nerve endings aflame, and Harry tried to keep his mind blank, but that had never really worked for him before, not with Snape, not in this wretched room, and he couldn't see why it should start now. Unbidden, he saw anew the image of Draco, face blanched like nothing living, zig-zagging slashes unfurling red blossoms around him. Harry's work . . . he closed his eyes and bowed his head.

There was something molten constricting his chest, fighting its way toward his throat, and Harry wrestled it down with all his might as Snape caned him.

Gradually, he became aware that the footsteps were still again.

He rose back into himself, out of the surface of something he couldn't look at, and opened his eyes.

In the silence, the sound of the cane still seemed to echo.

The impasse went on and on. Harry waited wearily. Finally, Snape spoke.

"So proud. So determined to play the hero, even now, Potter? But we both know what you really are."

Harry's back tensed, but he stayed where he was, waiting.

"As it so happens, the school canes have limits. It's almost unheard of for them to be used at all, and they carry wards to prevent a longer punishment with more strikes."

Snape strode away. Harry heard the cabinet opening, the cane placed inside, the door falling shut. Snape circled around to the front of the desk.

"What do you think, Potter?" he asked, soft and vicious. "Do you feel . . . sufficiently chastened? Cleansed of your guilt? Have you had enough?"

Harry stared back, tired mind racing, impulses warring within him. Snape knew him too well by half, the bastard, knew how to mess with his head. He wasn't going to rise to the bait. He wasn't going to show weakness. And he really couldn't think of anything to say.

Snape's mouth curved, at last, in a triumphant smile. "Thought not."

The alarms broke through in Harry's brain. As Snape strode back around the desk, approached him, he almost started to rise, overwhelming survival instinct telling him to stand upright, at least, face whatever was coming head-on. But Snape barked out an incantation, and Harry's forearms welded themselves back to the desk.

"What, not so brave after all, Potter?" Snape asked smoothly.

Harry stared out at the room again, pulse racing. And then he almost passed out in shock.

Snape's hands were on his belt, making efficient work of the buckle, drawing the leather out through the loops. Harry found his voice.

"What—"

But Snape wasn't done. Harry felt buttons and zipper undone, and the blood rushed to his face.

"—the hell do you think you're doing—"

Fabric was dragged down brusquely, and Snape's hand shoved his shoulders forward, clinically flicked shirttails upward. Harry shook with outrage.

"I—"

"—don't really care what you have to say at this point, Potter," interrupted Snape. "The cane is out, but you're not done yet. I suggest you hold your tongue for once in your life and reflect on your countless trespasses."

Harry was speechless.

The professor moved backward. Harry heard the leather folded double in his hand, yanked taut. He felt the cold air on his bare skin.

Then the belt struck him.

It wasn't an entirely new sensation. A few times, Vernon had lashed out wildly in his direction with a belt, catching him across back, flank, arm raised in defense — but his uncle had too much aversion to his nephew, too much distaste masking fear, to ritualize the violence, and soon enough the fear and Harry's growing wild magic kept him at bay.

This was nothing like that.

The expanse of leather bit down again and again, slamming into older welts, breaking blood vessels beneath the skin, stoking the terrible heat, the smack of the belt on exposed flesh echoing through the dark space. And that wasn't the worst of it.

Harry was no stranger to pain. Plenty of people had inflicted it on him in plenty of ways, for plenty of reasons.

But he'd always had his core of inner strength, and his fight, and his will and cunning to deal with the situation, to stand defiant and win free. To never be broken.

And above all, he'd never before thought that he deserved to be hurt.

Harry felt he would have let Snape beat him unconscious before he made a sound of pain, but he couldn't stop the tears welling in his eyes. Tears of shame, and remorse.

Lost in a fog violet-lit with the belt's rhythmic strikes, Harry drifted away until finally, he became aware that the beating had stopped. He gazed down at his hands and realized that at some point, the glasses had slipped off his face. He wasn't exactly sure how much of his blurred vision had to do with that.

Snape stepped into view. He stood there, arms folded, eyes missing nothing. Harry tried to hold his gaze, and couldn't.

Snape spoke. "I am going to leave you like this for a while, Potter. Time for you to think things over."

He turned and walked out.

Alone in the cavernous, cold office, Harry took deep, shaking breaths, tried to drag his thoughts back into order and get himself under control. Slowly, he took stock of the situation.

Snape had just beaten him black and blue.

Harry had just let him.

He wasn't sure if the horrible, sinking emptiness in the pit of his stomach was shame for his submission, or shame for the disaster with Draco, or both.

And he was still stuck to the damn desk. Arse out.

So, naturally, five minutes later, when footfalls approached the office and someone walked in, it wasn't Snape, but the one person in the castle who could make this utter nightmare even more unspeakable.

Malfoy.

"Professor, I—"

Malfoy stopped in shock.

Harry met his disbelieving gaze and wondered in quiet resignation just why his life was always such a twisted mess.

Malfoy stared at him. His eyes narrowed as he took in every detail of the scene, roaming over Harry's discarded robe, his arms pressed elbow to fingertip against the desk, his bitten lips and wet eyes. He moved closer, noticed the belt, cast aside, stalked one circling step nearer — and his gaze arrested, eyes fixed on the damning flush of Harry's skin, still bared to the world.

Harry wasn't sure what moved behind Malfoy's eyes as he stared blatantly, but it really needed to stop.

He was about to tell Malfoy so, but the blond spoke first.

"Potter," he purred.

Harry repressed a shudder. His remorse he would deal with later, in private. This was no moment and no position for apologies.

"Look—" he began.

"Yeah, I'm looking, all right," smirked the infernal blond.

Screw remorse, Harry wanted to stab him all over again.

But as Malfoy sauntered towards him, the light caught the end of a thin silvery scar, already faded like a years-old memento, curling over his collarbones, and Harry was suffused again with hot, searing shame.

Malfoy stopped at his side and stared brazenly, drinking in the sight of striped, reddened flesh. His lips parted.

"What happened, Potter? Bent over and spanked like a naughty little schoolboy, is it? Kinky."

"Malfoy, that's not—"

"Sure, okay, bit more hardcore, was it? Yeah, I saw the belt." Malfoy's eyes glittered hotly.

Harry stared ahead and tried to control his temper. If he could just move out of this ridiculous position . . . 

"Seems a shame though."

And Malfoy was way too close, leaning towards him, voice in Harry's ear. "The Chosen One finally put in his place and all Snape can come up with is a few of the best with a belt?"

Harry glared at him. Draco smirked.

"Waste not, want not, that's what I say."

And his hand was ghosting over Harry's heated arse.

"Fuck off, Malfoy!" Harry snapped.

The blond just snorted. "Maybe later."

The smack hit him while Harry was still piecing together a sufficiently furious answer, Malfoy's palm descending hard on the punished cheeks — and staying there. His hand moulded to Harry's arse, cupped the beaten flesh, felt the heat, squeezed lightly.

"Are you kidding me?" Harry sputtered.

Malfoy's fingertips idly traced the network of welts from the cane. "I don't think so, Potter, no."

His nails dug in. Harry's breath whistled through his teeth. Malfoy spanked him again, skin to heated skin, outrageous and unacceptably familiar.

"Though I must say, Potter, it's not like you," commented Malfoy casually, hand on Harry's stinging flesh, as though they were discussing the weather. Which they'd never done.

"What the flying fuck isn't like me, Malfoy?"

"Help me put the picture together, Potter. You came in here for detention, I presume — our mutual friend decides to give you what-for, and you meekly bend over and take it like a good little boy? You? 'Look at me, death-before-dishonour' Potter? Where's all your fight? Or are you just a secret painslut?"

"Malfoy, shut up for a second."

"You—"

"Just shut up!"

Malfoy's palm cracked across his arse, hard.

Harry counted to ten silently, and said nothing.

Malfoy circled around to look him in the face, curious.

Harry marshalled all his self-restraint, and looked into the grey eyes.

"M—" he stopped. "Draco," he said, voice low. "Look—I'm not proud of what happened in the bathroom." He drew a breath. "What I did to you."

The blond opened his mouth, disbelieving eyebrow rising. Harry's eyes, wide and unshielded, held his gaze. "I'm sorry, Draco," he said softly.

Momentarily stymied, Malfoy's eyes roved, resting on Harry's face, his flank, the tableau of punishment. In flexing his hands, Harry discovered that he could move them. He was no longer glued to the desk.

He stayed where he was.

"What, so you think this makes us even?" The cynical sneer was back in place, but Harry heard a new note in the voice.

"I can't take it back," he said quietly. "But I'll take whatever you want to do to me in return."

Draco laughed, breathless.

"What, bit of an arch-enemy bonding exercise? Did Snape hit your skull as well as your arse?"

"I mean it, Draco."

And the irritating blond finally closed his mouth, tilting his head to the side.

Harry forced himself to remain still and calm under the grey eyes, which were starting to warm just a bit.

"Well," huffed Draco, voice full of mirthful irony. "I suppose I could be persuaded to spank you a little longer." He yawned pointedly. "For the good of your guilt-wracked soul."

Harry nodded, temper firmly in check. Draco considered him.

"Beg."

Harry wasn't quite sure he was hearing correctly. "What?"

Draco circled him, leaned in, covering Harry's spine with his body, pressing his mouth to the shell of his ear.

"Beg for the punishment you so clearly deserve—and want," he purred.

What the hell. "Draco—" Harry ground out.

Draco's hand was brushing his arse again, barely there, sliding over the skin, tracing, hovering. "Ask nicely."

Might as well be hanged for a dragon as an egg, Harry thought distractedly, senses flooded with Malfoy's nearness, his warmth. He coughed, flushed, and fished out some words, anything to make the blond get a move on and get this whole train wreck over with.

"Ah—please. Draco, I'm really sorry. Please just—do whatever you think is right."

"You're not getting off that easy," Malfoy hissed in his ear. "Ask me for it."

Harry exhaled. "Hit me. Please. Before anyone else walks in here."

He felt Draco's silent exhalation of laughter against his ear. "Well, alright then."

Draco's questing hand squeezed, sharply, then struck him. Warmth spread across his skin. Again and again Malfoy spanked him, falling into a rhythm, his left hand firm between Harry's shoulderblades, his right alternating blows all over Harry's cheeks, bringing the fire back to a slow burn. Draco was relentless and thorough, chasing the welts with a flurry of slaps, striking hard and sharp over the crease, punishing the tender place where the curve of his arse met his thighs. The heat of the spanking and the bruising ache were overwhelming, but pressed to the desk, his nemesis holding him down and taking unhurried retribution, Harry felt . . . free. Clean. Right.

His breath came in shallow gasps, he felt he was floating, like without Draco's hand on his back, he would come unmoored and drift away. Cheekbone cradled to the wood, his eyes slid sideways, met Draco's, pupils blown, entranced, pale skin flushed.

"Harry . . ." he murmured. He was petting Harry's skin again, gently now.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, so sorry," Harry whispered. "I never meant to do that to you."

Draco regarded him peacefully. "I believe you."

Harry's eyes stayed on the triangle of skin at the base of Draco's throat and the thin silver scar. "Let me see," he whispered.

Draco stilled, then acquiesced, unbuttoning and shrugging the shirt open. Without volition, Harry's fingers strayed out to trace the sealed slashes. He looked stricken.

"I—god. Draco. I—take the belt."

Malfoy eyed him, frowning. "What?"

"I'm sorry, but sorry doesn't—I marked you for life," Harry blurted out. "I almost killed you. I made you bleed like, like nothing I've ever seen. Pick up the belt and don't stop until I—until I . . ."

Draco stayed frozen for a moment, then sighed. He grasped Harry's trousers, slid the material gently over the flaming skin, covering him, buttoning him up. Then he pulled Harry off the desk and sank to the floor with him, hands on his shoulders, bracing.

"Listen, you impossible twit. I forgive you."

Green eyes shimmered, stormy, full of regret, confusion and lingering heat.

"Anyway, if you want to keep making amends, I have a better idea."

Confusion won the upper hand.

Draco glanced down pointedly at the erection tenting his own trousers. He defied anyone to spank the perpetually defiant Potter into sweet, pliant submission, after years of antagonism, and not have the same reaction. The unspeakable, breathtaking beauty of it. His enemy's surrender, his contrition, trust and strength laid bare under his hand. His shame and fundamental innocence, all Draco's. He'd be damned if anyone was going to take this from him now.

In Harry's eyes, heat took over. "That's—oh," he breathed.

"Let's get the hell out of here before the professor comes back and go somewhere more comfortable," Draco continued. "Then you can put that mouth of yours to good use for a change instead of sputtering nonsense."

He enjoyed the veritable tempest of emotions on Potter's transparent face. Irritation, excitement, defiance, his usual contrary Gryffindor temper, desire . . . and uncertainty.

"That sounds . . . yeah . . . the thing is . . . I haven't, er, actually, ever, gotten around to, yet—"

"I know that, Harry," Draco said softly. He stood up and offered his hand. "No time like the present."

Harry took it. They left.

"Fucking finally," muttered Severus Snape, and stomped back into his office.

**Author's Note:**

> Write the fic you want to read in the world, that's what I say. Now, there have been some very hot and lovely stories exploring the untapped potential around repercussions from the Sectumsempra incident - canes! sex! dubcon! oh my! - but there's always room for more flavors of kink in our wonderful HP multiverse. Shame and punishment, pain, forgiveness, redemption.
> 
> Light on the actual Drarry slash, though implied and foreshadowed, because that aspect has been thoroughly explored in all the glorious detail I could want - what I was still missing is a particular sort of chastisement for Harry after his major fuck-up. The kind that, rather than demeaning or humiliating, however delicious that may be, actually exalts, because the act of submitting to pain and serving penance can be ennobling and cleansing. And I wanted him to take it in a way that credited his canonical strength of character, decency and quiet bravery.
> 
> If you know more fic with that spin, link it in the comments! Always felt that vibe was particularly on-brand for HP - this is the kid who walked willingly to his death and all but gave himself up on a sacrificial altar, after all. Massive capacity for martyrdom and noble suffering in a very... classical sense. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> The following fics from other authors explore various dynamics around transgression and forgiveness in different ways and helped flavor the creative broth in which I eventually brewed up this little fic of mine:
> 
> https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5128104/1/Punishment
> 
> https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4011655/2/Sectumsempra-The-Consequences  
> https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4109309/2/Sectumsempra-Snape-s-Perspective
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114378
> 
> Scene with Draco's scars:  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/9352796/chapters/21223955#workskin
> 
> https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11155515/1/After-the-Pensieve


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